UKIP’s folly

A sub-editor, responsible for finishing off a Janet Daley piece in the Barclay Brothers’ Beano about UKIP’s non-breakthrough, perhaps unwittingly spotlights the problem at the heart of UKIP’s ‘strategy’.

This big problem in this country is the establishment. UKIP’s problem is its aspiration to be part of that establishment, to become members of that club. The only difference between the current establishment members and UKIP is the level of disorganisation exhibited by that party, its lack of political nous and Farage’s failure to understand or recognise how to extract this country from the EU in a manner that safeguards British interests.

In many respects UKIP already acts like part of the establishment. The core goal it claims to be pursuing consistently gives way to internal party intrigues. But most importantly the message it articulates is one of negativity. UKIP, like all the other parties, enjoins voters to support it for negative reasons (‘send a message to the other parties’, ‘send a message to the EU’, ‘we are not like the others’).

Psychologically people find it more appealing and much easier to support a vision that is unswervingly positive, hopeful and rewarding. And when people are sick to the back teeth of the establishment, its stupid games and its climbers, as evidenced by the collapse in voter turnout in elections, they are not going to be excited by a supposed alternative that wants to ‘gatecrash’ that establishment.

Farage reject this, but the outcomes speak for themselves. Like climate change, forget the models and the theories and instead focus on the real-world observations.

There are many good people with the right intentions who are part of UKIP or support it. But even they need to take stock of the reality and ask themselves how, with every condition in their favour in a place like Rotherham – a majority of people wanting UK sovereignty, massive media coverage, an outrageous abuse of power where their immigration policy was grotesquely misrepresented, a former MP who thieved taxpayer money for his own ends among others – the party only received 4,648 votes from a possible 64,000 in the constituency.

Until they do and they take a different approach from the Farage crawl to also-ran status, the objectives those good people want to achieve will not be realised.

You are right. But, what should UKIP do?
I believe that the Conservatives are beyond redemption whilst the rebarbative Cameron is in charge, so UKIP seems the only real choice. It is clear that Labour must never be allowed to run our country again. So, I repeat, what must UKIP do to become electable?

“Breakthrough” was just media hype and I suspect that most UKIP members (I’m one) knew that. In any case, our most recently established mainstream party – the Labour Party – took several decades to establish itself as, first, an electable party, then an election winning party. UKIP hasn’t got, like Labour, tithes demanded from workers’ pay packets; and I daren’t mention Tory funding.

Yes, we have a huge permanent establishment, Civil Service, local government, QUANGOs, the BBC, NGOs, the EU, etc and it’s completely untouched by the democratic process. It has its own agenda, which is more or less to extend itself.

Elected political parties are nominally our elected dictators but they certainly find it hard to shrink the establishment. They’re largely a froth on the surface. They are in total agreement on things like energy and envirinmental policy, and as far as I can see, trying to fly the country into the ground with the afterburners on.

I vote for UKIP because their policies are most in line with my own ideas on the EU, green energy, immigration etc and the other three are totally at odds. I don’t actually ‘believe’ in UKIP, because they are a political party and would find themselves riding herd over the same establishment.Their incompetence is very frustrating.

The answer isn’t political parties or confusing having elections with democracy. It has to be some form of direct democracy.

I’ve no easy answers as to what UKIP should be doing to become more electable. They should have been concentrating on building local support, in areas most touched by the EU and not allowed themselves to be dominated by a single personality or seduced by having MEPs. I suggest they concentrate on attacking the big three on energy and environmental policy which strikes me as an open goal. It also ties in with their anti EU stance,

What sour, mean comment
All too readily you fall in alongside your embittered Corporal, Richard North, and take your marching orders from him: your views are utterly coincident and the vocabulary tiresomely similar. Whoever said that Farage was aspiring to join the Establishment? That is such a trite comment. What else is Nigel Farage to do, other than fight his fight within the present system? – and that makes for a long haul.
I believe that we become the company we keep and your uncritical view of Richard North, a man consumed with hatred of Farage, taints you. Even this week he can be heard whining on the BBC that Farage ‘used and then discarded him’ – he puts the proverbial woman scorned in the shade.
I suggest that you leave him with his sad little Harringey agenda and outpourings of bile and loathing and resume thinking for your self, something your Blog usually shows that you can do to sound and interesting effect.

For those of us who want to leave the EU and would like a sane immigration policy, a sane energy policy and a tax policy that makes economic sense, UKIP is the only game in town. Britain has got into the state it is in largely because Labour has battalions of boneheaded supporters who vote for it regardless of how much damage it does. No matter how strong the evidence, it would be a miracle if they suddenly realised that Labour is the last party they should be voting for, and switched to UKIP.

I want to thank John Coles for the biggest laugh I’ve had in ages. You’re a comic genius John. For the benefit of other people passing through, let me correct a couple of your conspiratorial assertions.

My views are the ones I have formed, based on the evidence of my own eyes and discussions with a sizeable number of former UKIP officers who have curiously similar stories to tell about life inside the party. As it happens, on the very rare occasions I have spoken with Richard he has never presumed to tell me what to think, and on a number of issues we have disagreed.

You ask ‘whoever said that Farage was aspiring to join the Establishment?’ If you read the post properly instead of racing to spit feathers because more than one person offers a view you are intolerant of, you will see it was the sub-editor at the Telegraph.

But in any case you then go on to ask ‘what else is Nigel Farage to do, other than fight his fight within the present system?’ tacitly accepting the charge is true.

Clearly your belief that ‘we become the company we keep’ seems to be on open display with your desperate defence of Farage and you carefully trodden path to avoid dealing with the fact you cannot escape, UKIP is not succeeding. The only person here with an uncritical view is you, of Farage, as I made no reference to Richard – a man you seem worryingly obsessed with – in the post.

Your lack of accuracy continues with your reference to the Harrogate Agenda as ‘Harringey’. As someone who attended the meeting I can tell you the membership of UKIP were spoken of warmly and it was the electoral performance of the party and its arse-about-face plan for withdrawing that was discussed.

In my post I have sought to be objective about UKIP’s failings and the person responsible for that is the man who pulls the party’s strings. You however have sought to engage in an ad homimen attack rather than address a single substantive point. Think on that a while.

AM, I think there is a lot of validity in your thoughts. I vote at every election and for the past 6 or so years I’ve only voted UKIP when possible or independent otherwise. But UKIP don’t do themselves any favours; they have Mr Farage and that’s it. Now, if the party has a plan and they are following it, I wish they’d tell me. But unless some scheming bastards join us the party will flounder for the foreseeable future, winning EU seats and irritating in the national elections.

For various cultural reasons (some of them political, some of them religious, all of them rooted in the accelerating decline of Britain) we live now in a post ‘democratic’ age; an age which has gleefully abandoned it’s Christian heritage; an age which clings to the establishment’s tentacles like barnacles clinging to a wreckage; an age which is greedy and fearful of death; an age, for many, of quiet desperation; an age which is ripe for rebellion.
Keep your powder dry, and trust in the good Lord.

I joined UKIP (in my 2nd year as a member) after the last election when I didn’t bother renewing my Tory membership because of Cameron. I do not know how things are going to turn out in the following few years before the next election and neither does anybody else. Who knows how the eurozone crisis will turn out. Dr. North does speak a lot of sense and really does know how the nitty gritty of the EU works. It is people like him that UKIP needs to design a strategy on winning seats. Clearly, Dr. North and many others past and present from UKIP do have a problem with Farage; but there are many Tories who have a problem with Cameron and many Labourites have a problem with Milliband. For sure he is good on TV etc but the problem I see is that other than him, nobody would know any other UKIP MEP. I do not know that answer on how to progress past the party being seen as just anti-EU. How do you get somebody from UKIP on TV being interviewed about grammar schools for instance? Or climate change/global warming/climate disruption? BBC/ITV/Sky are only interested in UKIP (mostly Farage) when the subject is on the EU. I believe that Farage is only invited on because he does make good TV and because it is about the EU. That is what needs to change but the media being what it is I cannot see it happening any time soon.

Having said that, how did Caroline Lucas get elected in Brighton when Greens primary policy is the destruction of UK industry (i.e a lover of all things green). Could this because the media give the greens too much air time because they are all on board the green bandwagon, or do not press them enough on other matters? (wheels coming off now for sure)